Don Draper and a Ride Home
by Ski-Ming
Summary: "Shoot, my old man don't give a hang whether I'm in jail or dead in a car wreck or drunk in the gutter. That don't bother me none." - A look into Dally's life in New York, featuring some period-appropriate character borrowing.


Don Draper and a Ride Home  
_by Ski-Ming_

Disclaimer: _The Outsiders_ and all of its characters are the property of S. E. Hinton and various publishers and media distributors. "Mad Men" and all of its characters belong to Matt Weiner. Sampled a line from Stephen Crane's _Maggie: A Girl of the Streets _and Cormac McCarthy's _Blood Meridian_, because I thought they tied in very well.

Warnings: 1960s attitudes toward women and minorities, violence, light swearing.

Author's notes: I was going to slap a big ol' AU label on this story, but you know what? In my mind, this is totally legit. No "what-ifs."

This story has a better payoff if you've seen the first season of "Mad Men" (and it contains oblique spoilers), but I don't think it should be too big a deal if you haven't watched it. It's definitely worth getting into, though! This will wait. ;)

* * *

He said, "Now, hey blind man, that is fine, but I sure can't waste my time. So move aside and let me go my way. I've got a train to ride."

– Elton John, "Son of Your Father"

* * *

Manhattan, 1961.

Dally likes to sting the suits down in Midtown. McFadden and Levine had told him not to. ("An eleven-year-old hood'll stick out like a sore thumb, and don't think we'll rescue you from that zoo when you get caught," Levine said. McFadden agreed: "Listen to the big-nose, Winston.")

But Dally knows better. _He _knows the suits don't pay attention to nobody. _They're_ too stuck up to think about anybody but themselves. During evening rush, the suits scurry from their skyscrapers to get cash for their fancy dinners. Then they stumble from the bars to the train station. Prime targets.

Pickpocketing isn't Dally's style – he _likes_ attention – but since his last arrest he's been lying low. His old lady gets on his case when he gets put in the cooler. Mr. Detroit doesn't give a hang one way or the other, but he gets mad when the old lady cries and so on. But he doesn't care about Dally. Why should he? Dally isn't his boy. They don't even have the same last name. Dallas Detroit? For crying out loud.

Today he walks to Madison Avenue. It's a long ways from Lincoln Square – seventeen blocks – but he can cut through the Park, and the Park is easy money. Right away he sees a bum passed out on a bench and in twenty seconds Dally has a fistful of nickels and dimes. It's easier to rob bums than pigeons. He puts the coins in different pockets so they won't rattle.

As soon as he reaches Madison he sees a whole family of tourists staring up at the buildings like stray dogs at a restaurant Dempster Dumpster. The man's wallet is just hanging out of his back pocket. All Dally has to do is wait for a crowd of suits to swarm by the family and he's in, brushing next to the tourists, faceless, victorious.

He tucks the wallet into his jacket and keeps walking, head down, until he ducks into a dead-end alley a couple blocks away. He opens up the wallet. Even though the alley is dark with shadows, he can clearly make out the numbers on the crisp bills. Thirty bucks. Grinning, Dally shoves the money into his back pocket.

He then inspects the wallet. It's from Woolco. Cheap. He's about to chuck it when a hand clamps down on his shoulder.

Dally tries to whirl around but his arm's being yanked behind his back, hard. Then, suddenly, he feels himself rushing forward, and the whole left side of his face slams into the brick alley wall.

He swears. "Turn loose!"

"Not for thieves," a man snarls.

There's no way Dally can get out of this with brute strength: he's eleven, but he's skinny, and this guy's built like a wrecking ball. Dallas lifts his foot to knee height and stomps down on his attacker's shoe.

The man curses and loosens his grip. It's only for a second, but it's just enough for Dallas to pry himself out from against the wall. Pivoting to face the man, Dallas pulls his switch from his shoe – ignoring his shoulder which is shot with pain – he flips out the blade.

He crouches with his blade arm fully extended. The man has moved well out of distance, but Dallas is blocking the way out to Madison. No way to get by without getting knifed.

"Ain't no one," Dallas growls, "tries to roll me and lives."

"Is that so?" the man says. He takes a step forward out of the shadows, and Dallas gets a look at him for the first time.

He's big – looks a little like Superman, actually, and that gets Dallas even madder, because he hates big guys who fight dirty. An expensive coat and briefcase are set down neatly against the wall. The suit must have stood there for a good long while, watching Dally take out the money. What a _sneak_.

"They don't teach you morals _or _grammar anymore?" the suit continues. "'Ain't no one.' You're a disgrace to everyone who's ever spoken the English language."

"You lookin to get stabbed?" Dallas says.

"You took something that didn't belong to you. You're despicable," says the suit.

"Well, welcome to New York," Dallas snaps. "You think this don't happen every day?"

"That which exists without my knowledge," says the suit, "exists without my consent."

"You're goddamn nuts," Dally tells him. "Try and beat me again, and I'll murder you."

The suit is silent for a minute. Then he says: "Pick up that wallet."

"It's worth jack," Dally protests.

"I didn't ask you how much you could sell it for," the suit says, and the snarl returns to his voice. _"Pick it up."_

Dally has never obeyed Mr. Detroit or the cops or McFadden or Levine. And right now he has a knife and the suit doesn't. Dallas has seen McFadden stab a bum right outside their building. Levine had held the bum's arms back and McFadden ran him through. Dallas bets he can do it too.

So he's not sure why he decides to listen to the suit.

It takes Dally a while to even spot the wallet – he'd dropped it in the scuffle, and it's getting darker by the minute. He crouches down Indian-style, never taking his eyes off the suit, and gropes for the wallet. His fingers touch shattered glass and a rotting apple core before they find it.

"Open it up," the suit commands him. "Go on, open it! You've already invited yourself to the money."

Dally rifles through the contents.

"Tell me what else is in there."

"Receipts. A photograph. A driving license. Big deal."

The suit shakes his head and his greased hair falls in his eyes. He says, "You didn't just take what that man earned. You took away who he is, and what he cares about. Now maybe you don't have anything to lose, but him? He does."

Dally snorts. "He'll live. Hell, I probably made that whole family's day, giving them a taste of the real New York."

"What do you want me to say? Congratulations? The real New York is the only reason freeloaders like you can survive without doing any real work," says the suit. "Those businessmen out there are what keep this country going. Without them there would be no deep pockets for you to stick your fingers into. The least you should do is be grateful."

"Grateful for what?" Dally scoffs. "I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there ain't one."

The suit doesn't say anything so Dally continues. "Anyway, those tourists are long gone by now. Nothing I can do about it."

"Throw the wallet over here. I'll mail it to him. You want to keep that money, that's between you and your tenement god."

Dally throws him the wallet. He aims short, so the suit has to stoop down to pick it up.

"Put that money to the only good use you can," says the suit, "and get a haircut."

And with that he rises up, steps right by Dally, tucks his coat and briefcase neatly under his arm, and disappears into the crowd.

Dally pushes the blade back into its handle and puts the switch back in his shoe. He creeps to the mouth of the alley and checks both ways, but doesn't see the suit anywhere. With the coast clear, he starts walking.

He takes the bus back to Lincoln Square. It's crowded, which suits Dally just fine. Nobody pays attention to nobody on a crowded bus. He examines his reflection in the dirty window. He has a cut on his eyebrow and a bruise on his cheek. Looks pretty tough.

He's the spit-image of his old lady. Same hair and eyes and everything. Not that Dally ever had his real old man around to compare to – the old lady got knocked up by some Dick shipping out for Korea. She gave Dallas the name Winston to honor the soldier and all that crap, but Dally knows she can't even really remember his last name. Winston, she thinks, but she was probably loaded at the time. It could be Wilson, or Whitman, or everlovin Nixon for all she knows. The old lady's a whore like that but she ain't so bad now that she's married.

The bus enters into a dark region where, from a careening building, a dozen gruesome doorways give up loads of babies to the street and the gutter. For the past three years, it's been home.

X X X

When Dally goes inside everything's half-shoved into boxes and suitcases.

"The hell's going on?" he demands.

But he knows. They've stayed in New York longer than any other place they've been. Before New York was Newark and before that was Baltimore, and before that Dally can't remember.

"Don't cuss," says Mr. Detroit. Dally ignores him. Mr. Detroit's always telling Dally not to cuss, or get drunk, or smoke cigarettes, or get arrested, but he won't do anything about it. It's safe to ignore him.

"Why are we leavin?" Dally asks the old lady.

"Queers," she says. She's shoving clothes into the old suitcase that won't stay shut unless it's wrapped with string. "Queers are taking over the whole city, it's disgusting, they're all over the Upper West Side and they're moving into our buildings. It's vile and I won't have you grow up around it."

"We don't got no queers in our building," Dally says.

"They're like _fleas_," says the old lady. "Even if you can't see them they're all over the place, infecting with their bite."

"Well, where are we goin now?" Dally asks.

"Mr. Detroit has a cousin in Ohio," she says. "We'll go stay with her for a while. And if that's no good, he has another one in Oklahoma."

Dally yelps. "Ain't nothing to do out _there_! I'll die of boredom!"

"It's not up to you, boy," says Mr. Detroit.

"Wouldn't you like to see the countryside?" says the old lady. "It's just like _The Lone Ranger_. You like those cowboy shows on TV, don't you?"

"JDs," Dallas informs her, "don't ride horses."


End file.
